Traditional music education typically requires students to practice playing musical instruments privately, though some practice in formal classroom settings. Students are evaluated by their teachers on a one-on-one basis so that the teachers can observe students and critique their performance. In most cases, students spend a majority of time practicing on their own and do not have opportunities to receive timely feedback, however. For this reason, it is easy for students to form bad habits that are difficult to break.
Additionally, it can be difficult for teachers to detect every mistake and shortfalls of students' performances by evaluating them in person. For example, teachers may be unable to observe all of the problems in a limited amount of time. In this way, traditional music education does not enable all teachers to provide thoughtful and detailed critique.
Some systems in the prior art claim means for providing music instructions with feedback. These include systems that have been patented and published in patent application publications. The foregoing is a list of prior art deemed most relevant to the present disclosure, which is herein described for the purposes of highlighting and differentiating the unique aspects of the present invention, and further highlighting the drawbacks existing in the prior art.
Specifically, Hogan, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011/0283866, discloses an education system for playing a musical instrument. Hogan discloses comparing test data generated by a student to a reference data for note, timing, and duration accuracy using the scoring system. However, Hogan is limited in that it does not disclose analyzing rhythm, tempo, duration, dynamics, pedaling, volume, articulation, and note. Additionally, the reference data includes a single set of correct or acceptable answers. Thus, Hogan does not disclose a reference data having a plurality of performance standards that is aggregated for the purposes of scoring a student's performance. Additionally, the reference data of Hogan cannot be used for determining the student's style of playing music.
Similarly, Moreno, U.S. Pat. No. 8,536,436, discloses a system that scores a student when playing a musical instrument. The system of Moreno includes a tracking progress module that collects user performance information and compares it to skills of other people. Preferably, the user is compared to other people sharing a similar characteristic with the user, such as age. In this regard, the system of Moreno does not necessarily disclose reference data that is generated by experienced musicians and/or artists. In this way, the system of Moreno is directed to a peer review system rather than an object-oriented system.
Humphrey U.S. Pat. No. 8,847,053, discloses a system that comprises a dynamic point reference grid, which includes a tempo map for a musical composition. The dynamic point reference grid does not disclose MIDI and aggregate performance standards generated from expert or model performances that can be pre-recorded. The dynamic point reference grid can be used to analyze at least a portion of a student's performance. In this regard, the system of Humphrey does not analyze the student's performance based on aggregate performance standards.
Other systems are directed to providing visual feedback to a student while playing music. For instance, Dzakula, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2013/0164727, and Asahi, U.S. Pat. No. 6,204,441, provide feedback in nearly real-time. In certain embodiments, Dzkula allows instructors and/or teachers to access the records of the student's performances at a later time for evaluation. Dzakula and Asahi, however, do not disclose any reference data. In contrast, Paterson, U.S. Pat. No. 8,735,707, allows a student to record his or her own sessions and share it with his or her contacts at a later time. Thus, Paterson allows the student to receive feedback after the performance instead of during, thereby eliminating means for receiving real-time analyses using any reference data.
Lee, U.S. Pat. No. 8,629,342, discloses a system that allows a student to compare his or her performance to that of an expert's. While Lee discloses reference data that comprises data generated from an expert's performance, Lee does not comprise a plurality of data generated from a number of experts such that the data can be aggregated. In this regard, Lee is disadvantageous in that it would encourage students to imitate a single artist's performance, thereby discouraging students to explore and practice different styles and techniques.
The systems disclosed in the prior art have several known drawbacks, however. These systems are limited in that they do not provide analysis using aggregate reference data, and that they do not provide a comprehensive musical performance evaluation and assessment. In this regard, the invention described herein addresses this problem.